Hingham home on tour is 256 years young’

Thursday

To anyone passing through the center of Hingham over the past few years, the sight of a handsome, cape-style, yellow house taking shape day by day was enough reason to slow down.

To anyone passing through the center of Hingham over the past few years, the sight of a handsome, cape-style, yellow house taking shape day by day was enough reason to slow down. Now, close to completion, the home of Sharon and Robert Delmonico is ready for its close-up, which will take place June 8 when it is open to the public as part of the Hingham Historical Society’s annual house tour.

The oldest of the homes on the tour, at 256 years, the Benjamin King House has been ushered into the 21st century lovingly and carefully by the Delmonicos and Hingham designer Monica Mackenzie to both reflect its past and meet the needs of a contemporary family, which includes four children, ranging in age from 3 to 15.

Thus, the Delmonicos have chosen not to create a show house complete with stainless-steel appliances and cute antique knick-knacks but a house for living that can handle the exuberance of children and the busy lives of parents who don’t have the time or inclination to worry about every scuff and scar inflicted by daily existence.

That becomes apparent the moment one enters the house and is confronted, not by an ornate foyer, but by a huge mudroom paved with brick and lined with four cubbies designated for each Delmonico child.

“This is wonderful,” enthuses Rob, “because the brick never shows dirt” and the kids’ clutter never makes it to the rest of the house.

The mud room leads directly into the family room, which is dominated by a fixture Benjamin King never could have imagined – a large, wall-mounted, flat-screened TV, which on this occasion is being watched by two of the Delmonico children, who, in turn are being monitored by their parents in the spacious kitchen that extends from the family room.

This family friendly section of the house, added to the original structure by the Delmonicos, doubled its size to 4,500 square feet. But it’s hard to tell where new meets old, so meticulously have the Delmonicos and Mackenzie merged its ancient and modern elements. An amazing example of that are the handcrafted cabinets in the kitchen, which look as though a couple of centuries of hands have brushed across them, wearing away their finishes. In fact, the cabinets are brand-new, but personally “aged” by Rob, who recounts the craftsmen’s horror as he scraped and burned their pristine creations back into the 18th century.

But they needn’t have worried, because Rob is no crazed do-it-yourselfer. Having lived in Hingham all his life, he’s a contractor and builder, who, with his two brothers, has fashioned a business that is thriving against all odds in the current dire real estate market. Over the past several years, the brothers have bought, renovated and sold six antique houses in Hingham, the most recent having been sold just a couple of weeks ago. Which, to paraphrase a movie slogan, seems to prove that if you build the right thing, they will buy.

Certainly, for the Delmonicos, their decision to buy and renovate the Benjamin King House was the right one. And if Sharon ever was unsure about the move, it was dispelled when she discovered, most serendipitously, that Benjamin King was her great-great-great-great grandfather.

The 84th annual Tour of Historic Homes and Buildings, on June 8, from 1 to 7p.m., includes six private houses and three public buildings – the 1680 Old Ordinary House Museum and 1818 Old Derby Academy, both owned by the Hingham Historical Society, and the 1681 Old Ship Meeting House, the oldest wooden church in the country in continuous use and a National Historic Site.

To order advance tickets by mail, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope with a check payable to the Hingham Historical Society in the amount of the number of tickets needed, to HHS, P.O. Box 434, Hingham, MA, 02043. Mark envelope “house tour.”

Tickets on tour day will be $25 and will be sold only at the Old Ordinary, 21 Lincoln St., after 10 a.m. From 10 a.m. onward, tickets may be exchanged for tour books, which are required for entry to the houses.

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